The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Recently, it seemed that the "Arab Spring" might have come to Judea and Samaria, when demonstrations broke out protesting the rise in the prices of gas and food. Palestinian Authority officials blame - could it be otherwise? - Israel for all of its troubles, and can even point to the source of the problem: the Paris Protocol, which binds the economy of the PA to the Israeli economy, the Israeli currency, the Israeli tax system and from here also to the prevailing prices in Israel. Their conclusion is that the PA must detach itself from the Israeli economy so that it can be independent. This demand was supported by several international bodies, who determined almost unanimously: The occupation is strangling the Palestinian economy.

However, the situation is much more problematic, because the economy is only the symptom of the illness; its result, not the real problem. The actual problem is the failure of the Palestinian project to establish one unique "Palestinian people", with a shared national identity, on the basis of which civil systems can be established, like an economy and legitimate self-administration. The Oslo Accords brought refugees to the area of Israel known as Judea and Samaria, most of whom are not native to the area (Abu Mazen was born in Safed) and were never accepted by the local Arabs as "one of us".

Those "architects of Oslo", chiefly Shimon Peres, imported these foreigners and put them in control of the local population, lacking any legitimacy to rule. Perhaps Yasir Arafat - who was born in Egypt - had the aura of a national symbol, but his successors do not enjoy this aura. He was a leader, and they are politicians. The intention of Oslo, from Israel's point of view, was - as the late Yitzhak Rabin put it - that Fatah should deal with Hamas "without the constraints of the Supreme Court or human rights organizations", meaning that Fatah would do the security work for Israel, and it would be its collaborator.

Arafat and his successors never intended to carry out this task, because the Hamas movement is composed of locals, especially in the Gaza Strip, and if the PLO waged a real war against Hamas, it would cause the whole population to rise up against it. So the PLO played the "revolving door" game: they arrested a few activists for the sake of appearances to appease Israel, and freed them after a few days. Therefore the PA and its security apparatuses never fought seriously against terror, and for long periods even engaged in terror actively. As a result, the Hamas movement grew and developed so that today it rules in Gaza.

Unsolved Problems
Another basic and negative feature of the Oslo Accords is the fact that these agreements left the settlement of the fundamental problems for the phase of the final status agreements: nothing at all was agreed upon regarding issues such as the borders, the Jewish settlements of Judea and Samaria, Jerusalem, the refugees, water, security arrangements and other issues, and they were left for settlement by negotiations that were supposed to have occurred within five years ("the interim period"). The architects of Oslo naively thought that within five years the two sides would be able to arrive at a final status agreement. The great failure of the Oslo architects is that they did not determine in the agreements what would happen if the two sides did not arrive at a final status agreement. If the agreements expired would all that was written in them be cancelled? Would each side be free to do whatever it wants? The fact that the agreements do not relate to this is criminal negligence, because the manner of exit from agreements must be written into them: If a person rents out an apartment, and the tenant doesn't pay the rent, the agreement must stipulate what will happen in this case, and what the exit strategy is. Without a detailed description of an exit process, no agreement is worth more than a garlic peel, and this is the case with the Oslo Accords.

Since in July 1999, the "interim period" of five years had elapsed without achieving a final status agreement, the Oslo Accords are now hanging in the air and are subject to the interpretation of each side: the Palestinians claim that it is their right to declare a state unilaterally, despite Israel's objection, and Israel disagrees with this interpretation. The Palestinians rush toward international recognition, and Israel gnashes its teeth but does nothing to prevent it. The Palestinian Authority fights Israel in every international organization, and Israel thinks when it is spit upon that rain is falling. The Palestinian Authority continues its wild incitement against Israel and its undermining of the legitimacy of Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

If a Palestinian state is established in Judea and Samaria, it will continue to be hostile to Israel, even if only because Israel will not allow the refugees of ‘48 to return to Jaffa and Netanya. Such a state might become a Hamas state within a short time after its inception by means of elections as has already occurred in January 2006, or by means of a violent takeover as happened in Gaza in June 2007. Can anyone in the world guarantee that this scenario will not occur? Can anyone prevent a mutual defense pact with Iran for example?

The people who control the Palestinian Authority are not authentic leaders and therefore it is quite possible that a local movement such as Hamas might conquer it and overthrow it shortly after it becomes independent, and the question that stands before Israel and the world is: should we be a party to a such a development? Can Israel function as a state when the Qassam missiles, the grads, and the katyushas of Hamas are falling on Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Petach Tikva, Ra'anana, Kfar Saba, Netanya, Hadera, Afula, and Haifa, not to mention Ben Gurion Airport, as they have been falling for years on Sderot, Ashkelon and the area surrounding Gaza? And if we take defensive action against the missiles, will there not be another Goldstone waiting around the corner?

Clearly, the PA exists only due to these three things: the IDF, which protects the PA and subdues its opposition, the handouts that the world transfers to the PA, which serve as the blood in its veins, and the economic treaty with Israel. Without these three components the PA would collapse within one day like a balloon that encounters a pin. The Arab public identifies with the PA only as long as it proves to be economically useful, and will get rid of it as soon as it ceases to be an employment agency, the largest provider of jobs.

The Real Solution
The Arab public in Judea and Samaria remains basically faithful to the tribe, not to national Arab ethnicity or the Palestinian narrative. In this it is no different from the other Arab countries surrounding Israel, the "Lands of the Mashreq (Orient)": Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Every time the Palestinian police try to get involved with family disputes, clan feuds or tribal struggles, they are thrown out because they are "not one of us". The large clans have much more meaningful control of the cities than the security organizations of the PA, so it's important to base any future arrangement on them. Contrary to the corrupt politicians of the PA, clan leaders are legitimate, accepted and welcome leaders, and therefore they will succeed precisely where the PA fails: To gain legitimacy and recognition in the hearts of the public, and to be accepted by it as natural leaders.

For this reason Israel must encourage the local authentic leaders of the cities to establish political frameworks, or emirates, defined according to the known sociological divisions: The Jabbari, Qawasmi, Natsha, abu Sneina and Tamimi tribes in Hebron, who have known for hundreds of years how to function with one another and are accepted as legitimate local leaders, of the Jabbari clan. In Nablus the al-Masri family can stand at the head of a local coalition with the Tuqan and Shak'ah families, and thus with all the other Arab cities of Judea and Samaria: Jericho, Ramallah, Tul Karem, Qalqiliyya and Jenin. Israel must forever keep control of the rural area between the cities in order to ensure that the mountains will not become Hamas Mountains with missile launching stations dug into the rock, as they are in South Lebanon.

The fact that the Palestinian emirates in the cities will be based on local sociology and local leadership, not the illegitimate rule that Israel imported, will afford to these emirates social stability, and therefore also political stability and economic prosperity. These emirates will live in peace with one another because they will be separate; each one will deal with its own issues and leave the others alone. This model is the only model that can exist in the Middle East. The troubles in this region stem mainly from the fact that groups that are different from one another and hostile to each other have been forced to live together. Also the fact that the regimes of the Middle East are mostly dictatorships stems from the fact that most of the population sees its ruler as "not one of us", and therefore illegitimate.

The time has come when Israel should dismantle the artificial and illegitimate framework called the "Palestinian Authority" and on its ruins establish eight emirates, one in Gaza, which has been alive and kicking for five years already, and seven more in the seven cities in Judea and Samaria. Israel should annex the rural area and offer citizenship to the villagers. From the demographic point of view this solution does not present a problem, and from the security point of view this is a necessary condition for Israel to be able to exist in the very dynamic and unstable Middle East, where treaties are disregarded, Jordan may break up to form a Palestinian state and a Bedouin state, Egypt is becoming increasingly Islamized, Syria is disintegrating and becoming a terror state and Lebanon may fall totally under the control of Hizb'Allah. A return to the '49 armistice lines, which would mean abandoning the Jordan Valley and retreating from the mountain ridge, would be suicidal for Israel.

It is to be hoped that our leaders will see the long-term Israeli interest and prefer it to the artificial, surface calm that Israel buys by "contracting" the PA at the cost of hundreds of millions of shekels and dollars. International recognition of a Palestinian state may perpetuate the Oslo disaster, and it will be very difficult to cope with such a state after it is declared and recognized. It is still not too late to prevent the establishment of a second Hamas state, this time in Judea and Samaria, and every day that passes without Israel dismantling the PA brings Israel closer to a most difficult situation, a real existential threat, which is that a Hamas state may sprout up in Judea and Samaria.

May we all have a good year and be inscribed in the Book of Life.

[For more information on Dr. Kedar’s proposed solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, see http://palestinianemirates.com ] ===============Dr. Kedar is available for lectures in the U.S. and CanadaDr. Mordechai Kedar (Mordechai.Kedar@biu.ac.il) is an Israeli scholar of Arabic and Islam, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University and the director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. He specializes in Islamic ideology and movements, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic mass media, and the Syrian domestic arena.

Source: The article is published in the framework of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. Also published in Makor Rishon, a Hebrew weekly newspaper.

Resolution
242 is the cornerstone for what it calls "a just and lasting peace." It
calls for a negotiated solution based on "secure and recognized
boundaries" - recognizing the flaws in Israel's previous temporary
borders - the 1948 Armistice lines or the "Green Line"[1] - by not calling upon Israel to withdraw from 'all occupied territories,' but rather "from territories occupied." The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 242 in 1967 following the Six-Day War.
[2] It
followed Israel's takeover of the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from
Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank from Jordan. The
resolution was to become the foundation for future peace negotiations.
Yet contrary to Arab contentions, a careful examination of the
resolution will show that it does not require Israel to return to the
June 4, 1967 Armistice lines or "Green Line."

Resolution
242 was approved on November 22, 1967, more than five months after the
war. Although Israel launched a pre-emptive and surprise strike at Egypt
on June 5, 1967, this was a response to months of belligerent
declarations and actions by its Arab neighbors that triggered the war:
465,000 enemy troops, more than 2,880 tanks and 810 aircrafts, preparing
for war, surrounded Israel in the weeks leading up to June 5, 1967. In
addition, Egypt had imposed an illegal blockade against Israeli shipping
by closing the Straits of Tiran, the Israeli outlet to the Red Sea and
Israel's only supply route to Asia - an act of aggression - in total
violation of international law. In legal parlance, those hostile acts
are recognized by the Law of Nations as a casus belli
[Latin: Justification for acts of war].

The
Arab measures went beyond mere power projection. Arab states did not
plan merely to attack Israel to dominate it or grab territory; their
objective was to destroy Israel. Their own words leave no doubt as to
this intention. The Arabs meant to annihilate a neighboring state and
fellow member of the UN by force of arms: [3]

"We
intend to open a general assault against Israel. This will be total
war. Our basic aim will be to destroy Israel." (Egyptian President Gamal
Abdel-Nasser, May 26, 1967)

"The
sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will
result in the extermination of Zionist existence." (Egyptian Radio,
'Voice of the Arabs,' May 18, 1967)

"I,
as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a
battle of annihilation." (Syrian Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad, May
20, 1967)

"The
existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. ... Our goal
is clear - to wipe Israel off the map." (Iraqi President Abdur Rahman
Aref, May 31, 1967)

Arab
declarations about destroying Israel were made preceding the war when
control over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (or Sinai and the Golan
Heights) were not in Israel's hands, and no so-called Israeli occupation
existed.

That
is why the UN Security Council recognized that Israel had acquired the
territory from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria not as a matter of aggression,
but as an act of self-defense. That is also why Resolution 242 was
passed under Chapter VI of the UN Charter rather than Chapter VII. As
explained above, UN resolutions adopted under Chapter VI call on nations
to negotiate settlements, while resolutions under the more
stringent Chapter VII section deal with clear acts of aggression that
allow the UN to enforce its resolutions upon any state seen as
threatening the security of another state or states.

Although
Resolution 242 refers to "the inadmissibility" of acquiring territory
by war, a statement used in nearly all UN resolutions relating to
Israel, Professor, Judge Stephen M. Schwebel, former President of the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague, explains that the
principle of "acquisition of territory by war is inadmissible" must be
read together with other principles:

"Namely,
that no legal right shall spring from a wrong, and the Charter
principle that the Members of the United Nations shall refrain in their
international relations from the threat or use of force against the
territorial integrity or political independence of any State."[4]

Resolution
242 immediately follows to emphasize the "need to work for a just and
lasting peace in which every state in the area can live in security."

While
Resolution 242 may call upon Israel to withdraw from territory it
captured during the war, the UN recognized that Israel cannot return to
the non-secure borders existing before the Six-Day War that invited
aggression - frontiers that the usually mild-mannered and eloquent
former Israeli diplomat, the late Abba Eban, branded "Auschwitz
borders."

The Meaning of the Words "All" & "The"

As
noted above, the UN adopted Resolution 242 in late November 1967, five
months after the Six-Day War ended. It took that long because intense
and deliberate negotiations were needed to carefully craft a document
that met the Arabs' demand for a return of land, and Israel's
requirement that the Arabs recognize Israel's legitimacy, to make a
lasting peace.

It
also took that long because each word in the resolution was
deliberately chosen and certain words were deliberately omitted,
according to negotiators who drafted the resolution.

So although Arab officials claim Resolution 242 requires Israel to withdraw from all territory
it captured in June 1967, nowhere in the resolution is that demand
delineated. Nor did those involved in the negotiations and drafting of
the resolution want such a requirement. Instead, they say Resolution 242
explicitly and intentionally omitted the terms 'the territories' or 'all territories.'

The
wording of UN Resolution 242 clearly reflects the contention that none
of the territories were occupied territories taken by force in an unjust
war.

Because the Arabs were clearly the aggressors, nowhere in UN Security Council Resolutions 242 is Israel branded as an invader or unlawful occupier of the territories.

The
minutes of the six month 'debate' over the wording of Resolution 242,
as noted above, showing that draft resolutions attempted to brand Israel
an aggressor and illegal occupier as a result of the 1967 Six-Day War,
were all defeated by either the UN General Assembly or the Security
Council.

Professor Eugene Rostow, then U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, went on record in 1991 to make this clear:

"Resolution
242, which as undersecretary of state for political affairs between
1966 and 1969 I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and
allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until 'a
just and lasting peace in the Middle East' is achieved. When such a
peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces 'from
territories' it occupied during the Six-Day War - not from 'the'
territories nor from 'all' the territories, but from some of the
territories, which included the Sinai Desert, the West Bank, the Golan
Heights, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip."

Professor Rostow continues and describes:

"Five-and-a-half
months of vehement public diplomacy in 1967 made it perfectly clear
what the missing definite article in Resolution 242 means. Ingeniously
drafted resolutions calling for withdrawals from 'all' the territories
were defeated in the Security Council and the General Assembly. Speaker
after speaker made it explicit that Israel was not to be forced back to
the 'fragile' and 'vulnerable' Armistice Demarcation Lines ['Green
Line'], but should retire once peace was made to what Resolution 242
called 'secure and recognized' boundaries ..."[5]

Lord Caradon, then the United Kingdom Ambassador to the UN and the key drafter of the resolution, said several years later:

"We
knew that the boundaries of '67 were not drawn as permanent frontiers;
they were a cease-fire line of a couple decades earlier. We did not say
the '67 boundaries must be forever."

Referring to Resolution 242, Lord Caradon added:

"The
essential phrase which is not sufficiently recognized is that
withdrawal should take place to secure and recognized boundaries, and
these words were very carefully chosen: they have to be secure and they
have to be recognized. They will not be secure unless they are
recognized. And that is why one has to work for agreement. This is
essential. I would defend absolutely what we did. It was not for us to
lay down exactly where the border should be. I know the 1967 border very
well. It is not a satisfactory border, it is where troops had to stop
in 1947, just where they happened to be that night, that is not a
permanent boundary ... "[6]

In a 1974 statement he said:

"It
would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of 4
June 1967. ... That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to
them and I think we were right not to."[7]

It is true, as Arab leaders correctly note, that certain suggested drafts of
Resolution 242 exist that contain that tiny controversial "the" in
reference to territories. Arab leaders say this proves that Israel must
withdraw from all territories captured in 1967. However, those versions
of the resolution are in French. Under international law, English-language versions are followed and accepted as the conclusive reference point, and French versions are not.

Arthur J. Goldberg,[8] the U.S. Ambassador to the UN in 1967 and a key draftee of Resolution 242, stated:

"The notable omissions in language used to refer to withdrawal are the words the, all, and the June 5, 1967 lines
. I refer to the English text of the resolution. The French and Soviet
texts differ from the English in this respect, but the English text was
voted on by the Security Council, and thus it is determinative. In other
words, there is lacking a declaration requiring Israel to withdraw from
the (or all the) territories occupied by it on and after June 5, 1967.
Instead, the resolution stipulates withdrawal from occupied territories
without defining the extent of withdrawal. And it can be inferred from
the incorporation of the words secure and recognized boundaries that the
territorial adjustments to be made by the parties in their peace
settlements could encompass less than a complete withdrawal of Israeli
forces from occupied territories." [9]

Political
figures and international jurists have discussed the existence of
"permissible" or "legal occupations." In a seminal article on this
question, entitled What Weight to Conquest, Professor, Judge Schwebel wrote:

"A
state [Israel] acting in lawful exercise of its right of self-defense
may seize and occupy foreign territory as long as such seizure and
occupation are necessary to its self-defense. ... Where the prior holder
of territory had seized that territory unlawfully, the state which
subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense
has, against that prior holder, better title.

"As
between Israel, acting defensively in 1948 and 1967, on the one hand,
and her Arab neighbors, acting aggressively, in 1948 and 1967, on the
other, Israel has the better title in the territory of what was
Palestine, including the whole of Jerusalem, than do Jordan and Egypt." [10]

Professor Julius Stone, a leading authority on the Law of Nations, has concurred, further clarifying:

"Territorial
Rights Under International Law. ... By their [Arab countries] armed
attacks against the State of Israel in 1948, 1967, and 1973, and by
various acts of belligerency throughout this period, these Arab states
flouted their basic obligations as United Nations members to refrain
from threat or use of force against Israel's territorial integrity and
political independence. These acts were in flagrant violation inter alia
of Article 2(4) and paragraphs (1), (2), and (3) of the same article."[11]

If
the West Bank and Gaza were indeed occupied territory - belonging to
someone else and unjustly seized by force - there could be no grounds
for negotiating new borders.

The Drafting History of 242 Shows it Pertains to all Refugees - Jewish and Arab

Lastly,
Resolution 242 speaks of "a just settlement of the refugee problem,"
not 'the Palestinian or Arab refugee problem.' The history of the
resolution shows that it was intentional and reflected recognition that
the Arab-Israeli conflict created two refugee populations, not one.
Parallel to the estimated 600,000 Arabs who left Israel, more than
899,000[12] Jews fled from Arab countries in the aftermath of the 1948 war - 650,000 of them finding asylum in Israel.

A
history of the behind-the-scenes work drafting the resolution shows
that the former Soviet Union Ambassador Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kuznetsov
sought to restrict the term 'just settlement' to Palestinian refugees
only. But former U.S. Justice Arthur J. Goldberg, the American
Ambassador to the UN who played a key role in the ultimate language
adopted, pointed out:

"A
notable omission in 242 is any reference to Palestinians, a Palestinian
state on the West Bank or the PLO. The resolution addresses the
objective of 'achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem.' This
language presumably refers both to Arab and Jewish refugees, for about
an equal number of each abandoned their homes as a result of the several
wars." [13]

Expressing its continuing concern with the grave situation in the Middle East,

Emphasizing
the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need
to work for a just and lasting peace in which every State in the area
can live in security,

Emphasizing further that all Member States in their acceptance of the
Charter of the United Nations have undertaken a commitment to act in
accordance with Article 2 of the Charter,

1.
Affirms that the fulfilment of Charter principles requires the
establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which
should include the application of both the following principles:

(i) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;

(ii) Termination of all
claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of
the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of
every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure
and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;

2. Affirms further the necessity

(a) For guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area;

(b) For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;

(c)
For guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political
independence of every State in the area, through measures including the
establishment of demilitarized zones;

3. Requests the Secretary-General to designate a Special Representative
to proceed to the Middle East to establish and maintain contacts with
the States concerned in order to promote agreement and assist efforts to
achieve a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the
provisions and principles in this resolution;

4.
Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on the
progress of the efforts of the Special Representative as soon as
possible.

This
document uses extensive links via the Internet. If you experience a
broken link, please note the 5 digit number (xxxxx) at the end of the
URL and use it as a Keyword in the Search Box at: http://www.mefacts.com/

Eli E. Hertz

Source: mythsandfacts.orgCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The disproportionately
high profile of American Jews in the U.S. presidential election contest
and the efforts invested by both candidates portraying themselves as
supportive of the Jewish state has assumed surrealistic levels.

Overall, Israel's
standing in the U.S. today is at an all-time high. Yet, the Democratic
convention spotlighted the emergence of a hostile anti-Israeli component
of the party, which threatens to undermine the long-standing bipartisan
support of Israel exemplified by the standing ovations Netanyahu
received during his May 2011 address to Congress.

Economic issues will
invariably be the dominant factor influencing voters and most American
Jews will base their political choice on a multi-dimensional basket of
issues. But the majority would like to be assured of the well-being of
the Jewish state and expect their president to behave toward Israel as
an ally and be sensitive to its security requirements.

Although most Jews
continue to support Obama, growing numbers, especially the Orthodox,
have concluded that on the basis of his tortuous Cairo speech and his
earlier diplomatic battering of Israel, he is more committed to the
Palestinian than the Israeli narrative and will vote against him.

With the impending
elections, Obama launched a concerted charm offensive to avoid further
defections from his Jewish constituency. He repeated that he will
“always have Israel’s back”, emphasized his exemplary record in
strengthening Israel’s defense capabilities and reiterated that he had
delivered the most pro-Israeli speech at the U.N., unprecedented by any
U.S. president.

Initially, it seemed he
was succeeding. But subsequently, Jewish angst was revived by numerous
aspects of Obama’s behavior. There are intensified doubts regarding his
genuine intention to resort to the military option if needed to prevent
Iran from becoming a nuclear power. These anxieties were reinforced by
Obama’s failure to repudiate the intimidating rhetoric from
Administration spokesmen conveying veiled threats against Israel acting
independently, especially the offensive remark by the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, who did not wish “to be
complicit” if Israel acted against Iran’s nuclear project.

Another cause for
concern was the cozy U.S. relationship with Turkey in which the U.S.
surrendered to their demands to exclude Israel from joint military
exercises or even participate in a conference on global terrorism. There
was also Obama’s failure to adequately condemn the Nonaligned Movement
summit which endorsed Iran’s nuclear policy, appointed a Holocaust
denier as its new head and whose representatives from 120 countries
listened politely to the genocidal ravings of their Iranian hosts.

But the most chilling
message was the elimination of pro-Israel components from the current
Democratic Party Platform. In particular, the deletion of all reference
to recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel — which conformed
to the policy of the Administration. After a huge outcry and following
three calls for approval from delegates, it was clumsily reinserted,
provoking a flood of audible boos from many delegates.

But other key clauses
relating to Israel were not restored. These included reference to
“Israel, our most reliable Middle East ally”, condemning Hamas,
rejecting a return to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines and calling
for Palestinian refugees and their descendants to be resettled in a
Palestinian state rather than in Israel. Washington Post columnist
Jennifer Rubin described this platform as “the most radically
unsupportive statement of policy on Israel by any major party since the
founding of the state of Israel.”

Subsequently, Obama and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s harsh dismissal of Israel’s plea
to draw red lines in relation to moving beyond sanctions combined with
the president’s refusal to meet Netanyahu during his visit to New York,
served to heighten tensions with Israel even before the elections. It
also provided a chilling projection of what to expect from a second
Obama term.

Why don’t Jews abandon a party that is, at best, ambivalent toward the Jewish state?

The reality for most
American Jews is that since the era of President Franklin Roosevelt,
their bond with the Democratic Party is embedded in their political DNA
and even considered a quasi-religion.

Yet it is likely that
President Barack Obama would have acted even more harshly against Israel
were Jews not such an important component of the Democratic Party.
There is therefore a positive aspect to ongoing Jewish involvement to
retain existing Democratic congressional bipartisan support — in the
absence of which Israel’s defense infrastructure would erode and the
international community would undoubtedly throw us to the wolves.

So when influential
pro-Israeli Democratic congressmen or prominent Jewish Democrats like
Stuart Eizenstat or Dennis Ross retain their party affiliation, even
those disagreeing with them should be relieved that within this
prevailing dangerous Democratic political terrain there remain
influential Jews willing to combat those seeking to distance the U.S.
from its traditional alliance with Israel.

Alan Dershowitz
exemplifies this. He is a devoted champion of Israel who recently
reaffirmed his support of Obama despite having previously condemned his
policies, even comparing him to Chamberlain.

To his credit,
Dershowitz condemned the Democratic Party platform and even after the
amendments told the Algemeiner that he was bitter “not only with regard
to Jerusalem”, but also with the other crucial issues which were not
reinstated. He accused “rogue elements” within the Democratic Party,
from Arab-Americans to anti-Israeli Jews, of seeking to undermine “the
bipartisan support for Israel which characterized American politics
since 1948” and destroy the U.S.-Israel alliance. He vowed to convey
this to the president who he hoped would “make statements prior to the
elections reaffirming the contents of his 2008 platform.”

Thus, even those who
would aspire to see more Jews demonstrating displeasure with Obama at
the polls should realize that it is a disservice to Israel to demonize
Democratic supporters like Dershowitz if they speak up and protest
against anti-Israeli policies.

This is not an
endorsement of those who argue that Jews should avoid regarding Israel
as a wedge issue in the elections. It is precisely during the election
season that American Jews should maximize their democratic right to
influence policy by responsibly criticizing and objecting to policies
they consider to be flawed or immoral.

Indeed, to ensure that
politicians take greater account of Jewish sensitivities, one would
expect mainstream American Jewish leaders, whilst remaining apolitical,
to speak out far more aggressively against any party which adopts
anti-Israeli positions, whether Democrat or Republican.

This applies especially
now, despite that if re-elected, Obama is capable — as he was following
the last elections — of reneging on his undertakings. Indeed, U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently unblushingly told an
international journalist that like all politicians, Obama’s remarks
about Israel prior to elections should not be taken too seriously.

Indicators suggest that
the majority of Jews will continue to vote for Obama but despite
conflicting polls, an increasing minority, especially the most
committed, is likely to oppose him and may well provide the lowest level
of support for a Democratic president since Carter.

In addition, many Jews,
unwilling to sever their umbilical cord with the Democratic Party, may
well continue supporting their Democratic congressional representative
yet oppose Obama at the presidential poll — which would actually serve
to reinforce bipartisanship toward Israel, currently under siege.

Isi Leibler's website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com. He may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.comSource: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2603Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to the
General Assembly of the United Nations today centered on trying to
convince the world that a red line needs to be drawn to stop Iran from
obtaining nuclear weapons. To do that he literally drew a red line on a
cartoon picture of a bomb. To the chattering classes following the
speech on Twitter, this was a joke. But the reaction to the simplistic
bomb diagram illustrated Netanyahu’s problem perfectly. Iran is getting
closer every day to achieving its nuclear ambition. In response, world
leaders, like President Obama, talk about the need to stop Tehran and
even pledge not to contemplate containment of a nuclear Iran. But unless
they make it as clear as that red marker line on the diagram, they will
fail.

That is the key issue. Netanyahu thanked President Obama for his
promises on Iran, but pointed out that without a red line that will make
it clear that Iran will not be allowed to accumulate enough uranium to
build a bomb, such pledges are meaningless. The Israeli’s frustration
stems from the fact that an international consensus about an Iranian
bomb being a bad thing won’t stop it from happening. The complacent
attitude that always thinks failed diplomacy and ineffective sanctions
can be given more time is a guarantee of such failure.

Critics will claim that Netanyahu’s description of Iran’s enrichment
process doesn’t tell the whole truth because they believe that the
uranium accumulated so far isn’t of weapons grade material. But, as the
UN’s own investigative body, the International Atomic Energy Agency has
reported, the progress made in the last year makes the advances
Netanyahu discussed quite realistic.

The wiseacres can laugh all they like about Netanyahu’s cartoon. But
the facts that it represents cannot be dismissed with witticisms. Talk
about Iran not backed up with clear warnings is exactly what the
ayatollahs are counting on.Jonathan S. TobinSource: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/09/27/will-the-world-heed-netanyahus-warning-iran-nuclear/Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The key phrase in Palestinian Authority leader
Mahmoud Abbas’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly today
didn’t mention Israel. He had promised Jewish leaders he would recognize
Jewish rights to the land that is disputed by Israelis and
Palestinians. He moved a little closer to such recognition with his
mention of the ties of the three monotheistic religions to the country
and did say he didn’t want to delegitimize Israel–though much of his
speech was clearly aiming at just such a goal. But the most important
sentence was the one where he complained about the Palestinians being
moved “to the bottom of the global agenda.” He then went on to claim
that the PA alone was the sole legitimate representative of the
Palestinians and that there could not be two such bodies.

It was those sentences, in which he vainly banged his head against
the wall of world indifference to his cause, that were telling. The fact
is the Palestinians are at the bottom of the world agenda. That’s
because, contrary to his boast, the PA is a corrupt, ineffective state
which doesn’t control all of the territory it claims since Gaza is ruled
by Hamas. Thus, while much of the world applauds Abbas’s imprecation of
Israel as a racist, colonialist state and his outright lies about the
fomenting of hatred that his government promotes, they have no interest
in supporting him. It was for that reason that Israeli Prime Minister
Netanyahu gave Abbas’s speech barely a mention as he went on to
concentrate on his country’s real problem: a nuclear Iran.

Abbas’s unhappy acknowledgement of the world’s opinion of the PA
summed up exactly why the “diplomatic tsunami” that was supposed to
engulf Israel last fall never happened. The global community may not
like Israel and is not enraged by the anti-Semitic incitement that the
Palestinians routinely produce. But they know that Abbas can’t make
peace with Israel and won’t negotiate with it to create a state that
will, as Netanyahu said, recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state.
They also know the PA is incapable of governing such a state and that
Abbas, in the eighth year of his current four-year term as president,
fears that Hamas will supplant him if given the chance.

The Palestinian issue is one that the world cares about. But it
doesn’t care about the PA. That is why they are on the bottom of the
global agenda and will stay there so long as they produce leaders such
as Abbas.Jonathan S. Tobin Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/09/27/how-irrelevant-are-the-palestinians-very-abbas-un-israel/Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Being "one with the tiger" is a
popular goal in the modern world, and our leaders are forever leaping
into tiger dens in the hopes of becoming one with the beast.

In the Bronx Zoo, David Villalobos was rescued from a tiger den after
leaping inside to, in his own words, "Be one with the tiger."

Being "one with the tiger" is a popular goal in the modern world, and
our leaders are forever leaping into tiger dens in the hopes of
becoming one with the beast. These leaps of faith end about as well as
they did for Villalobos who was mauled by the tiger, but like Villalobos
they never seem to draw the proper conclusions about the dangerous
nature of tigers.

British, French and German leaders did not hop into tiger enclosures
in the London Zoo, the Parc Zoologique de Paris and the Berlin
Zoological Garden. Instead they turned these cities into open air
safaris where the natives were encouraged to mingle with the tigers. The
multicultural safari has not been going well, with the tigers mangling
the natives, burning their cars and chewing on their police officers.
The European Union zookeepers have been wondering loudly what they can
do to fix their oneness integration project, while releasing still more
tigers into the streets of London, Paris and Berlin.

The United States did not jump into a tiger den in the Bronx Zoo.
That would have been fairly sane compared to its leap into Libya. With
the Arab Spring, the tigers were freed and men like Christopher Stevens
jumped inside. The bloody marks on the walls of the Benghazi consulate
are a grim reminder of what tigers eventually do to the men who move
into their dens.

In his Cairo speech, Obama let the Muslim world know that he wanted us to be one with the tiger.
"I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States
and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual
respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not
exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and
share common principles."

Three hundred million Americans and one billion Muslims would no
longer be exclusive; they would overlap, like a plane overlapping with a
skyscraper, a bomb overlapping with a consulate and a falling man
overlapping with the open mouth of a tiger.

Oneness is a noble goal, but unlike seeking oneness with the
universe, when seeking oneness with a tiger it is best to consider the
terms on which that oneness will be achieved. While the man's idea of
becoming one with the tiger is to give it a big hug, the tiger's idea of
becoming one with the man is to devour him. Both are forms of oneness
but only of them is survivable for the man.

The Islamist mobs burning embassies, smashing cars and assaulting
police officers are the tiger's growl warning us of the terms on which
that overlapping oneness will occur. Islamist rulers in Turkey and Egypt
are giving interviews telling us that oneness with them will depend on
our willingness to accept their values and laws. The question is
whether, like Villalobos, we will be as besotted with the tiger as to
accept oneness with it on those devouring terms.

There is a Chinese proverb that says, "If you ride a tiger, it is
difficult to get off." Riding the tiger is difficult enough, but getting
off it is even harder.

The United States leaped on the back of the tiger when it began its
dangerous relationship with Saudi Arabia. Europe tumbled on when it
allowed itself to be flooded with Muslim immigrants who established
Islamist mosques and schools in its cities. Both the United States and
Europe have been mauled by the tiger, but still believe that there is
nothing to do but to go on riding the beast deeper into the jungle until
it becomes convinced of our common overlapping values and stops trying
to eat us.

The deeper we go into the darkness, the harder it is to tell whether
we are riding the tiger or the tiger is riding us. As newspapers tremble
at the thought of a Mohammed cartoon and government officials beg
YouTube to take down a Mohammed trailer that offends the tiger, it seems
as if the tiger is riding us.

According to police detectives, Villalobos became obsessed with
tigers. The West has in its own way become obsessed with the Muslim
world. Westerners going off to seek oneness with the mysterious east are
not a new phenomenon, but a hundred years ago they did not drag entire
countries and civilizations them with into the tiger's maw. Today the
new Lawrences of Arabia are no longer playing with Eastern empires; they
are trifling with the survival of the West.

When Villalobos jumped into the tiger's den, there were police
officers and zookeepers there to rescue him. But as the West leaps into
the tiger's den, who will be there to save us?

The historian Nils Rune Langeland, a Professor at the University of Stavanger in Norway, dared to make some statements about possible future conflicts
caused by Multiculturalism and mass immigration that the establishment,
self-appointed guardians of Goodness, did not like. Frithjof Jacobsen,
formerly the vocalist in a hard rock band and currently the leader of
newspaper VG’s regular columnists, toyed in a column with the idea that
maybe the security services should quietly search the flat of Mr.
Langeland. He even suggested that the good Professor perhaps deserved to
be “tarred and feathered” for his views.

This full-length essay was published in the country’s arguably most powerful newspaper and was illustrated
by a drawing made by respected illustrator Roar Hagen, showing the
Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) spying on a brain filled with
ideas about an Islamic threat to Europe and the Western world. Columnist
Jacobsen furthermore wrote that Anders Behring Breivik’s mass murder
was simply the “natural product” of mudslingers on the Internet who
tirelessly keep repeating the same otherworldly tales about a supposed
Islamic threat to our societies. In his opinion, using Breivik’s
atrocities to confront people harboring such opinions is “completely
natural,” since their criticism of Islamic aggression and terrorism
means that they “share opinions with terrorists and murderers.”

Frithjof Jacobsen suggested that one of these dangerous and extremist
ideas that should be confronted and possibly lead to closer personal
surveillance by the country’s security services is the use of the term
“dhimmi.” Yet this is a perfectly acceptable Arabic word that has been part and parcel of Islamic vocabulary and mentality
for over a thousand years. Mr. Jacobsen thus first and foremost
betrayed his own profound ignorance and mistook this for tolerance,
which is a fairly common flaw for his kind of people.

Dhimmis are non-Muslims under Islamic rule who are not just
second-rate citizens in their own country but could almost be described
as non-citizens, lacking basic rights and protection for themselves and
their families in many situations. Dhimmis are supposed to be
subservient and obedient to Muslims at all times and are required to
forever pay them substantial amounts of protection money, jizya, in “willing submission” to Islamic rule.

Muslims love to portray themselves as innocent, blameless victims and
predictably complain after nearly every Jihadist terror attack that all
Muslims should not be punished for the actions of a few individuals.
However, they carefully leave out the fact that this is precisely what
their own Islamic law and logic dictates for non-Muslims.

If even one non-Muslim dhimmi says or does something that displeases a
Muslim, this can and sometimes does trigger violent retribution against
his entire community. In practice, a mere rumor falsely planted by a
Muslim who holds a personal grudge against a specific non-Muslim can be
enough to trigger riots, murder and mayhem. This means that non-Muslims
in countries harboring sizable Muslim populations live under a constant
shadow of fear of Muslim violence and abuse. If one of them at any given
time says something critical of Islam or its founder, this can trigger
violent attacks and murder against his entire clan, tribe or nation
based on the flimsiest excuse.

What Western mass media have nearly universally failed to point out
is that Muslims have now advanced to the point where they treat the
entire Western world as dhimmis, hostages to Muslim abuse and threats of
violence. On September 11th 2012, the anniversary of the 9/11 Jihadist
attacks against the USA, Muslim mobs attacked several American embassies
in the Middle East and killed the US Ambassador in Libya, Christopher
Stevens. Evidence indicates that this attack had been planned in advance.

In multiple Middle Eastern cities, crowds shouted slogans in praise
of Osama bin Laden, whose terror network al-Qaida killed thousands of
Americans on September 11th 2001. The date was no doubt chosen to mock
the USA and show continued support for Jihad against the West, yet the
pretext for these attacks was an obscure movie made under unclear
circumstances in the USA that was considered offensive to Muslims.
Western media who present this movie, Innocence of Muslims, as
the “cause” or direct trigger of these attacks fail to note that Muslims
will pick up any pretext to riot. They have been known to make
complaints and threats to hamburger stores or coffee shops because they
claimed to have seen hidden references to the words Allah or Muhammed in
their products. Muslims are skinless people in a sandpaper world, as
one observer once put it. Their feelings would always be “hurt” by
something even if we removed all offensive cartoons and movies on the
planet. This is about power, fear, dominance and Islamic aggression.When Muslims worldwide use violent riots as tools of intimidation and
blackmail in response to what a few individuals in one Western
countries have done, they are in effect treating the entire Western
world just like they treat the abused Christians in their home
countries, or other religious minorities that have not yet been
persecuted into non-existence. It is remarkable how most Western mass
media and political commentators have systematically failed to point
this creeping dhimmitude out to the public.

VG’s column by Frithjof Jacobsen was published on September 17th
2012, after nearly a week of angry Muslim protests and deadly riots
which were still spreading to different countries around the world. Not
only did the newspaper fail to point out that Muslims are increasingly
treating Europeans and Westerners as dhimmis. On the contrary, Mr.
Jacobsen went far in suggesting that those mentioning the very term
“dhimmi” are suffering from delusional paranoia, are extremists and
perhaps potential terrorists who should possibly be put under
surveillance by the security services.

This is not a unique case, either. Another one of VG’s regular columnists, Anders Giæver, previously
claimed that my readers react as strongly to any criticism as Muslims
do to any criticism or mockery of their Prophet Mohammed. Giæver has
some explaining to do after September 2012, when Muslims were attacking
embassies and killing people in various countries while none of my
readers seem to be doing the same. He is wise enough to remain silent on
his matter, though — or perhaps we should say cowardly enough.

I have some positive things to say about VG’s debate editor Elisabeth
Skarsbø Moen. VG have, for the most part at least, allowed me to reply
to statements about me in their newspaper. This is, strictly speaking,
only fair and in accordance with their own ethical guidelines, but I
know from experience that some media don’t follow their own guidelines.
Elisabeth Skarsbø Moen is willing to write sarcastic comments about “angry white men,” but seems more reluctant to write about angry Muslim men in the same manner.

On the negative side, however, she and her newspaper often cut out
elements of my essays without asking me first, despite prior assurances
that they would not do this. I have noticed that the newspaper tends to
cut out references or quotes indicating that Islam itself, not just
“radical Islamists,” might present a problem. They also cut out a
reference made by me to the fact that Yusuf al-Qaradawi,
the powerful spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, supports
marriage with children based on the fact that Muhammed himself had
sexual relations with his child wife Aisha when she was just nine years old.

Skarsbø Moen told me by email that they would not allow such
statements to be published in their newspaper. However, theologically
speaking this is a fact. It says so in the most revered hadith
collections for a billion Sunni Muslims, and the Shias have similar
traditions of their own. That is why the Islamic Republic of Iran under Khomeini after the revolution in 1979 lowered the legal marriage age of girls to just 9 years.

VG’s staff thus actively censors critical — but factually correct —
information regarding Islam and Islamic practices, yet at the same time
mock writers suggesting that such censorship exists. This represents a
pattern of submission and hypocrisy that has sadly become all too
familiar among Western mass media today.